The growth of wellness in corporate organisations

Over the last 10 years, we have seen a dramatic shift in the way employers think about and pay attention to the well-being of their people.

Corporate wellness

There is now a significant case for workplace wellbeing or ‘corporate wellness’ that has been proven to impact overall performance. There is a clear business case for looking after the workforce, and company owners are taking more and more responsibility for this.

So, before we explore exactly what this means for experts and practitioners in wellness (as far as opportunities to play a part in this industry sub-category), let’s look at what is driving the growth in corporate wellness more generally.

The corporate wellness industry

The Global Wellness Institute estimated in 2018 that workplace wellness was a sector worth $48 billion globally, and this is certainly on the increase. In the UK alone, according to government research by the Health and Safety Executive, 15.4 million working days were lost due to work-related stress, anxiety or depression in 2017/18.[1]

It is estimated that sleep deprivation alone is costing businesses up to £40 billion per year, and mental health problems £35 billion. Statistics are similarly startling in other developed nations like the United States.

Employee productivity

It is becoming increasingly recognised that the productivity of employees can be directly affected by an individual’s health and wellbeing, and where employee productivity in the workplace is low.

We call this presenteeism. It is estimated that the costs associated with presenteeism due to poor employee wellbeing are at least 2-3 times greater than direct healthcare expenses.[2]

Business opportunities for experts

With these statistics in mind, there are a whole host of business opportunities for experts and practitioners to deliver their service offerings in a corporate setting.

There are more than 50 papers that have now examined the connection between workplace wellbeing programmes, which all generally reduce absenteeism and presenteeism.

There is scope to address the wellbeing of employees from a number of different angles, including mental wellbeing, physical wellbeing, financial wellbeing, social wellbeing, and more.

The return on investment for businesses

Harvard researchers found that the return on investment for businesses is considerable, with every dollar spent on workplace wellness programmes translating into savings of up to $2.73.

The actual opportunity for experts and practitioners can be presented in a few key ways:

• Developing focused, relevant workplace programmes marketed directly towards employee wellbeing – that utilise your skills and expertise as they pertain to reducing the impact of conditions negatively impacting workplace wellness, like stress, anxiety, tiredness, etc.
• Providing your services via a specialist workplace wellness provider that curates workplace wellbeing programmes.
• Sharing knowledge and expertise with HR professionals and managers so that they can implement and drive workplace wellness programmes within organisations themselves.

If you’d like to learn more about building a career in the wellness industry, check out the full online course from Welltodo, below.

References

[1] Health & Safety Executive (2020) Work-related stress, anxiety or depression statistics in Great Britain http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/causdis/stress.pdf (accessed 2 February 2021)

[2] Wayne N Burton, Alan Morrison, Albert Wertheimer (2003) Pharmaceuticals and worker productivity loss: a critical review of the literature https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12802214/ (accessed 2 February 2021)